I’m a huge fan of the Jackass franchise, and I’ve been since I was a kid. I loved the TV show, I filmed myself with a couple of friends trying to recreate the stupidly awesome stunts on the show when I was ten, I saw the first movie and laughed my ass off, ditto with the second one. And so it would stand to reason that it would be the case again with this third outing from Johnny Knoxville and the gang who all came back for this one, with the exceptions of Brandon DiCamillo and Raab Himself. Not to mention that this was going to be in 3D, which would no doubt add a whole layer of idiocy to it all.

And I really did love it. The reviews haven’t been infinitely kind to Jackass 3D, which is understandable I guess. And, maybe if I hadn’t grown up with the TV series from when I was nine until it ended a couple years later I wouldn’t love it as much, but the box office gross for it indicates that there are quite a few people like me who loved it. Since its release over three weeks ago this one has made nearly $130 million on a $20 million budget, making it by far the most successful of the three films, and gives me hope for another one of these to come out soon.

Jackass has always been about this amazing group of people doing seriously stupid stuff for our own amusement, and they continue doing just that here. There’s a stunt in particular that had the fat guy of the group, Preston Lacy, running on a treadmill and getting all of his sweat into a cup, and then Steve-O would have to gulp that cup down. And I kid you not, that when you see Steve-O looking at it before drinking it, and when you see him drinking it, the effect you get is better than the one many commercial thriller or horror films can achieve. Yes, it’s disgusting, but that’s part of it, you won’t look away, you’ll just laugh your ass off at it.

Johnny Knoxville, the eternal leader of this pack of likable morons, is still seriously endearing. The guy is terrifically charming, and he’s one of the reasons why Jackass works so well, look at him at the talk shows during the film’s promotional tour, explaining how he’s still recovering from an injury from a couple years ago in which a motorcycle landed on his crotch, no one else could come off as charming as he does when retelling that. He’s the ultimate slapstick comedian nowadays, and it’s for a reason.

I didn’t think the guys would be able to top themselves with this one, but it seems that the added dimension (which really doesn’t add that much to the effect of the film), got their creative juices flowing differently, and that’s what got their stupidity to be as good as it’s ever been. The secret of Jackass is that their gags, some of which are just recycled versions of one’s we’ve seen before (like Steve-O jumping into a ceiling fan), are always awesome because they have an amazing chemistry with one another, you know these guys (who are pretty much all nearing 40) are all best friends with one another, when they laugh like crazy when they see each other get hit in the nuts by a buffalo you’ll laugh with them, sensing that sadomasochistic camaraderie, and loving every bit of it.

Now, again, the one sort of bad thing I have to say about Jackass 3D is that, even though the 3D does work at times, it doesn’t work nearly as well as it potentially could have. I liked the 3D because that’s evidently the thing that inspired some of the awesome stunts we see here, but the 3D in itself doesn’t really work so much to actually boast the film to a new level of awesomeness and yuckiness.

But still, we love these guys, we think they’re our friends and we take so much pleasure from their pain, and what’s best is that they seem to take a lot of pleasure out of it, too. They act like babies who don’t know what will happen if they stick their finger into the socket, though of course in this case the finger is a dildo-firing bazooka and the socket is Bam Margera’s ass.

Les Misérables is a bit too over-the-top and pompous, but it’s still seriously well-made, with a passion and energy that translates to the performances (with one critical omission) even if it doesn’t always do the same with the vocals. Read my review for it here.

Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow’s follow-up to The Hurt Locker is an undeniable masterpiece, a film that’s both disturbing and 100% necessary, the most vital film about post-9/11 America. Read my review for it here.